Rumblings xtra: Items that didn't make print edition

With the Reds about to sign former Phillies closer Ryan Madson to a one-year $8.8 million deal, the question being bandied about is who is the blame for Madson not taking the four-year, $44 million deal that was supposedly imminent with Philadelphia.

Scott Boras, Madson’s agent, said that they advised the Phillies that they would accept the offer and the Phillies pulled it back and instead signed former Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon for $50 million. Phillies GM Ruben Amaro said there was never any agreement and the team just decided to go in a different direction.

Maybe Amaro suddenly realized that he could sign Papelbon and had a change of heart, but it was also seems plausible that either Madson or Boras miscalculated the market, thinking that they might have been able to get more and ended up getting much less.

Either way, the Reds are the big winners in this deal. They got what appears to be an upgrade on Francisco Cordero, whose $12 million option they had declined, for a bargain price, in a season when they are making a big push for the post-season.

The arctic blast that has central Ohio in its grip today serves as a reminder that new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer might have to perfect a different spiel to out-of-the-region recruits on weather-related topics.

During his 2005-2010 stint as head coach at Florida, Meyer was doubtless selling the pluses of living in the Sunshine State in the dead of winter. Or as defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd of Philadelphia said when he announced in January 2010 he was picking Florida over OSU: "It was a battle between Ohio State and Florida. Coming down to the end I was just looking for where I knew I was going to be most comfortable and where I can spend the next, not four, but 40 years of my life."

Now Meyer and his new staff of assistant coaches, almost all of whom are Ohio natives or spent time in the state growing up, must sell the winters of the Buckeye State. If anybody can, it might be Meyer, though. He was born in Toledo and raised in Ashtabula, northeast of Cleveland on Lake Erie, right in the heart of the snowbelt.

OSU dropped one spot to No. 11 in ESPN’s latest recruiting ranking. Michigan also dropped one spot to No. 7. No other Big Ten schools are in the top 25.

With Hue Jackson out as head coach of the Raiders, Carson Palmer’s future in Oakland has become a topic of debate. Jackson is the one who made the oft-criticized move to acquire the veteran quarterback from Cincinnati, giving up a first-round pick in 2012 and a second round pick in 2013, that would become a first-round pick if the Raiders reach the AFC title game.

Will the new coach want Palmer as the starter? No one knows the answer to that question obviously, but Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio is among those already wondering if Palmer might quit on the Raiders the same way he did the Bengals if things aren’t to his liking.

It appears that Dick LeBeau will return as the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator. Coach Mike Tomlin said earlier this week that he would like both of the teams coordinators to return and sources told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that LeBeau, the 74-year old London, Ohio, native and Ohio State grad, wants to come back. He is in his second stint as the team’s defensive coordinator (following a three-year term as the Cincinnati Bengals head coach) and has held the position since 2004.

It was a family affair at Barry Larkin’s Hall of Fame press conference at Great American Ballpark this week, just as it might be at Cooperstown when he is inducted into baseball’s shrine next summer.

Larkins parents (Shirley and Robert) and two of his three brothers (Stephen and Byron) were part of this week’s press conference, and the former Cincinnati Reds shortstop made it clear that Byron had been doing some lobbying even before the final vote was announced.

“He goes, ‘So when you get inducted, who are you going to have introduce you?’” Barry said. “You mean if I get inducted? He’s like, ‘Oh man, whatever.’ I said to be quite honest I hadn’t thought about it. He’s kind of quiet. I said, ‘Are you telling me something?’” He’s like, ‘Yeah and I would do a really good job, too.’”

Byron’s case may be made.

“There’s only one lobbying,” Larkin said. “It’ll be him if I go that route.”